The season of visitors :)

*warning, photo heavy posting!*

Starting in March of this year, we've had a parade of visitors (and lots of travel as well)... I always intended to do posts for each of them, but in the getting ready for visitors, then hanging out with them, then recovering and preparing for the next ones, I've gotten a bit behind!  But, we've been incredibly lucky to have lots of people coming over this way to see us :)

The second week of March, our friend Adam came for a few days after his business trip to France.

(Adam somehow found some superwoman models @ MAC cosmetics one day, and this photo was too awesome not to post)

While Adam was here, my Uncle Steve and Aunt Pam graced us with their fun presence for about 2 days.  And my cousin Andrew came for about 24 hours!  They were on their way to southern Portugal to hang out with Andrew's girlfriend & family.

We had a couple of weeks off, and in that time I started working 3 jobs (thats fodder for another post) which made me VERY busy.
Then, I met my mom in Amsterdam for a couple of days!!!  Woohoo for visiting the motherland :)

At the Keukenhof outside Amsterdam

 She and I came back to Madrid for a couple of days...

Then the three of us went to Valencia for the weekend!  Unfortunately, I didn't get a good photo of the three of us...but you can see how happy Brian is that I'm taking an excessive amount of photos of the City of Arts & Sciences (buildings on the header of this blog, I might be a little obsessed.  We have great architecture over here)

After Valencia, we came back to Madrid for a couple of days, and then Mom & I headed down to Seville and Cordoba.

Bullring in Seville

 

The Mezquita in Cordoba

After Seville, we came back to Madrid for a few days (She toured museums & the city, and Brian ran a marathon, we went to a bullfight).  The Tuesday before Easter, our friend Zack came to town, and then the four of us headed to Italy.
We started in Rome...

Inside St. Peter's Basilica at Vatican City (dang blurry photos...)

Inside Vatican City

Touring the inside of the Dome @ St. Peters

Inside the Roman Forum, with a view of the Coliseum in the background

In front of the "wedding cake" - Victor Emmanuel Monument

Then went up to Tuscany to stay at an incredible winery and tour the countryside - Greve, Chianti Wine, Siena...

After a couple of days in Tuscany, we went to Florence for a couple of days...

Sitting on the Ponte Vecchio

On top of the Duomo in Florence

From Florence, my mom headed off to Paris for a couple of days, and we brought Zack back to Madrid with us.  We hung out here for a few days, then all went up to a northern state in Spain, Asturias, for some outdoorsy stuff - hiking, eating, kayaking (thus the awesome wetsuits below)

AND, we're finally up to speed -- Brian's cousin Todd & his wife Shannon arrived on Friday morning, and we spend the weekend eating and drinking our way through Madrid.  They're off to Barcelona this morning, but we're meeting them up in Paris later this week.

It was raining, and we were in H&M.  Why not try on awesome glasses?

The season of visitors is far from over - we're so excited to see Ross & Amber (and go to Norway with them!), then Ben, Chelsa & Aubrey, then maybe Meg, then Z & family, and then the precious Nattie over here in the coming weeks!  Woohoo, it's going to be busy & awesome!

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Happy Mother's Day!

We're so grateful for our moms!  What wonderful women they are, and we would not be the people who we are today without their nurturing, loving, encouragement, support, cooking, and love!

mom - i love you!  So glad we got to experience Europe together :) -kate

ma - i love you!  -brian

And, we can't forget a Happy Mothers Day to Marissa!  Congrats on your first official mothers day :)  Wish we could be there to celebrate with you, Ben, & Mark!

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hm, cool.

just what i needed this morning to get my mind in motion.  thanks chris.

hoping to return to regularly scheduled blogging now that our month of travel & visitors has wrapped up.

missing you mom!

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Skiing in the Mountains of Madrid

For our one year anniversary of living in Madrid, I ditched Brian and headed into the mountains with a couple of gal pals (don't worry, Brian and I went out for a nice dinner that evening to celebrate).  The place we girls headed to had gotten a meter of snow in the past week, and Tep was itching to get away from the city and into the mountains.

I can't begin to tell you how gorgeous it was.  I'll let the photos speak.

Hopefully you can tell we had fun on our skiing excursion!  Thanks for a fun day chicas :)

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Thoughts from Brian....One year later

This weekend marked our one year anniversary of arriving in Madrid.  I'm not sure I could sum up our last year in one post (hence the last 70 some odd posts) but I can say for sure that it has been a blur.  Life shifted from an already blistering pace straight into warp speed.  

 Sitting in the Atlanta airport, ready to leave for our big adventure to Spain - March 5, 2010

Baggage Claim and arrival in Spain, March 6, 2010 (sorry for the blurriness) 

We've come a long way in one year.  We arrived in Madrid after packing up our lives in Iowa and not sleeping for our last 48+ hours in the US, not speaking a lick of Spanish, not really knowing what we were getting ourselves into.  Now, city life and apartment living seems like the norm, speaking Spanish is a part of life rather that a constant looming disaster, and the correct time for lunch and dinner is 2 and 10, respectively.

Kate asked me to do an anniversary post and seeing as she is currently cooking banana bread (of which I will eat most of it) I had no grounds to say no.  I came up short when trying to think of something real profound or heartfelt or funny or insightful to write about so I decided to make a brief list of one or none of those things regarding our last year in Spain.

1. Despite the illogical and chaotic appearance of the round-about (1-5 lanes wide), once you've learned how to use them, they may be one of the best ideas any civil engineer has ever had.

2. Have coffee and sweet rolls for breakfast, eat 2 large plates of food with dessert and coffee for lunch and finish the day with copious amounts of alcohol and fried foods between the hours of 10-1 and you can still drop weight as long as walk EVERYWHERE, substitute your beef for fish and smoke a pack a cigarettes a day (kidding, on the smoking part anyway).

3. Living in a place where the winters aren't mind-numbingly cold for 3 months straight actually does make sense.

4. The one thing you can absolutely count on when learning a new language in a different country is that you WILL sound like (and possibly look like) an idiot on a daily basis, that's part of the deal apparently.

5. The next time you encounter a customer service agent in the US, thank them.  You don't know what you've got until you've lost it.....customer service is not a standard feature in all countries.

6. We really are the only country that cares about American football.......and I miss it.

7. Spain's Two-buck-chuck is AMAZING! The Spanish apparently save all of the best wines for themselves.

8. Sangria amplifies the Kez and Mollie party factor by at least 10x.  It has no effect on Brad.

9. Regardless of where you're traveling or where you live, a lazy day at home still feels like a million bucks.

10. A year away in Europe still feels like a long year away from family and friends.  We miss everyone back home (or wherever you are these days).

I think I'll leave the next year's worth of posts up to Kate so until 2012, all the best.

(Last weekend, after going out to celebrate our wedding anniversary)

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